Egypt announced, on Monday, the opening of a water treatment plant in the northeastern governorate of Port Said, which it described as “the largest in the world.”
The Egyptian presidency said in a statement that the station was established at a cost of 18 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.14 billion), and will treat the waters of the Bahr al-Baqar Bank (one of the largest agricultural wastewater streams in the country).
She added that the plant will operate with a production capacity of 5.6 million cubic meters per day of triple treated water.
And she continued: “The treated water will be transferred to the lands of North Sinai Governorate (northeast), to contribute to the reclamation of 476,000 acres (approximately two million square kilometers) within the framework of the national project for the development of Sinai and to enhance the system of optimal use of the state’s water resources.”
A statement by the Egyptian government said today that President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and senior officials inaugurated the station today.
Madbouly indicated, according to the same statement, that “the Bahr al-Baqar water treatment plant is the largest of its kind in the world.”
He said that the station will provide treated water to “a precious part of the land of the Sinai region, which the state seeks with great interest for its development and settlement.”
He said that Sinai was a “theatre for terrorist operations” in the aftermath of the summer of 2013, and in the following year, the presidential directive was to launch a project for protection and development at all levels, which began and is still ongoing.
He explained, “The vision before us is that Sinai will be a field for establishing a new life outside the valley and delta regions (they are witnessing great crowding).”
During the opening, Sisi stressed that the armed forces are responsible for securing the work of cultivating the lands that will be reclaimed in North Sinai thanks to the treated water that will be produced by the new plant. For fear of sabotage by “terrorists”.
The pace of terrorist operations in Sinai has declined in recent years, according to observers, and the Sinai development plan came after decades of wars with Israel, and the government’s move away from this spot in light of its vastness and the large financial cost of reconstruction.
Egypt is facing a water shortage crisis, and rising fears of the construction of the Ethiopian dam without a binding legal agreement, but it has resorted to alternative plans to reduce water losses and establish treatment projects.
